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Dungeon Keeper Ami

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Ami's eyebrows shot up as everyone kept staring at her with bated breath. "What?" she asked into the silence, crossing her arms in front of her chest defensively."Aren't- Aren't you going to convince them by revealing your grotesque and horrifying true form now?" Snyder asked, a hint of disappointment quivering in his voice.The three goblin heads peering around the door frame nodded. "Yes. Is traditional."Ami blinked at the expectant expressions surrounding her, then closed her mouth with an audible snap. She turned her head and threw a pleading look at the Reaper, who just snickered at her predicament. "But I'm human! I really look like this!"

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Zarekos is VERY fond of this. His speech and narration also have a bit of Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness to them, apparently so that he has more opportunities to alliterate. For example, his dismissal of his Brainless Beauty vampire:

Adorable Evil Minions: Features both the goblins and the Imps. Both provide comic relief and are, usually, very mischievous. Occasionally, then can, in fact, act with cruelty, but it seems to stem mostly from the way the are themselves treated. Later on, Ami gets new, youma-empowered imps (basically baby youma); they come with overalls and tiny hard-hats...

Advancing Boss of Doom: Ami faces two on Avatar Isle; first Keeper Alphel, and not much later The Avatar. The former cuts her off from any resources she could use to harm it, while the latter is just that good.

Ami herself is one at times, notably when breaching Salthalls to meet with its Duke.

A Glass in the Hand: In A New Home, Mukrezar had the wine glass in his hand shatter, "as he suddenly clenched his fist" after learning the lethal amount of magic that Ami used, and he basically has no way of matching to one-up her.

"I believe -that-," Jadeite lectured, smirking behind the force-bubble that protected him like a red-smeared windscreen, "is a sufficient demonstration of why we don't just ignore the baby steps and skip ahead." He was talking to the hazy black column of energy that crackling in the centre of the bare room, signing mock quotation marks with his fingers at the last part.

To his credit, her opponent didn't flinch at her approach. His horned helmet only covered his face from the nose up, and she could see him press his lips together in determination. "Split, scatter, surround!" he instructed as he took a wide-legged stance, the six braids hanging off his chin bobbing.

Animated Armor: As explained in "Divine Opposition, Part 2", Ami's Powered Armor are basically remote controlled armor pieces that move with the wearer to apply more force to their actions. If the user is actually outside the armor, it's basically this trope, "[w]hen fitted with a fake helmet".

Animorphism: In "Convoluted Rescue Plan, Go!", Ami has made pills that turn people into "baby mice", and Tserk willingly took one, to facilitate the rescue plan.

Anything That Moves: Not actually applied to anyone, but the rumor mill about Ami has her being this, and she has a hard time convincing anybody otherwise.

A hail of crossbow bolts cut off Ami's attempt at diplomacy, turning the front of her ice golem body into a pincushion. "-yohhhhk- " She blinked when her tongue refused to move, pinned to the back of her throat to by a bolt that had entered her open mouth. Surprised and annoyed by her sudden inability to talk, she darted into cover behind one of the pines.

"Oh. OH." Cathy sounded chagrined as she looked at Mercury with pleading eyes. "Please tell me we are not going to charge the enemy army head-on!" [Cut to the Underworld Army facing The Avatar, Mercury, Jadeite, Rabixtrel some automatons, and some golems.]

Appetite = Health: In "Trouble Is Brewing", there are worries about Ami's health and a lack of appetite.

"Bullshit! You barely touched your meal. You didn't defeat that Reaper just so you could get done in by a lack of appetite! I'm making sure that you are eating right, and that's final!"

Armies Are Evil: Dungeon Keepers, who are all worshippers of at least one God of Evil, have standing armies, while the God of Good worshipping Surfacers are feudal and don't have standing armies, having guards and recruiting militia from the civillian populace at need.

Ami responded with a well-aimed Shabon Spray Freezing. Alas, the magician's hands, which had been concealed within the long sleeves of his skull-embroidered robe, shot up, already glowing greenish with gathered power. As if drawn by a magnet, the blue ray of concentrated bubbles tracked the wizard's outstretched hand, which traced a horizontal circle in the air as he spun around his own axis until his extended finger was pointing back at Ami. With an "Eep!" of surprise, she threw herself out of the way of her own attack, rolling off her momentum on the thick carpet.

After Mercury thwarts Crowned Death's attempt to physically incarnate one of its Lesser Aspects, it prevents her from reclaiming the Mantle by sacrificing it to resurrect Keeper Mukrezar, the man who originally defeated the Avatar.

His eyes widened in surprise as he suddenly found himself isolated, surrounded by a ring of unsympathetic faces and expectant grins. His head darted left and right like that of a trapped animal looking for an escape route before he dropped to his knees. "I didn't mean to-"

the [imp] scuttled over to the unconscious [goblin] it had landed on, and unceremoniously stuffed him into its pack. With a high-pitched groan, it strained to lift the body, which was still hanging half out of the sack, and disappeared. [...] Back at the dungeon heart, the imp reappeared, and dumped the unconscious body on the ground as if it was garbage.

Somehow, he didn't think she would be impressed if he serenaded her from below a balcony. Not that she had a balcony in this dungeon.

Bald of Awesome: Cathy jokes that Ami should keep the bald look that she got from her trip into the Dark Gods' realm, becoming the "envy of Keepers and cultists everywhere", because nobody else had their hair done by a dark god!

Bald of Evil: Not intentionally, but Mercury was, at one point, bald and is assumed to be evil by most of the world.

Bald Woman: Ami, having her head shaved thanks to the Unraveler. While she's not particularly broken up about it, she's still rather annoyed and seeks to repair the damage.

Beard of Evil: Multiple, as part of the generic "evil wizard" look as mentioned in Nero's first appearance:

One of the first warlocks Ami hires is described as a "generic evil warlock". Upon closer inspection, he sports a fake beard. He was too young to have a proper one and was going for the look, thus being an Invoked Trope.

Ami herself, thanks to losing hair to a misadventure and using a modified beard growing spell. Subverted Trope, as she isn't evil, everyone only thinks she is.

Torian, did you by any chance, only expand the target region?

Barely-There Swimwear: Discussed in Unwelcome Surprises, about a corrupted Sailor Mercury uniform that's a "net-like collection of loosely connected holes", where it's said that Tokyo has "skimpier swimwear", which gets a raised eyebrow from Cathy.

Bestiality Is Depraved: Averted. But Ami has a hard time convincing anybody. The rumor mill insists Ami has these tendencies.

Ami sighed, busy with removing the fat frog from her ear. The animal had clamped down on one of her small blue earrings, which added some pain to the general discomfort of being attacked by a slimy amphibian. Both of her hands closed around her diminutive attacker when she finally got a firm grip on it, and the frog croaked angrily as she held it out in front of her. "This isn't normal frog behaviour." ... "Well, well. It is possible that this is not a frog at all, but another victim of the evil warlock, transformed into this unappealing form."

Tiger, for Ami when she is possessed by Crowned Death. Torian also attempts this, and though it is definitely his moment of pure Badass, he is a Butt-Monkey, and thus fails.

Big Fancy House: The Shining Concord Empire, as part of their conditions for opening diplomatic channels with Empress Mercury, insist that she build them an embassy according to specific blueprints they provided (of a scale model of their Emperor's palace) - at her own expense. It's just a misinformed attempt to make Mercury spend more precious gold, as she can make more at any time as opposed to normal Keepers.

A huge shadow, almost as broad as it was tall, moved across the mildewy wall as its owner approached with quiet footsteps. The being that stepped into the weak torchlight was much shorter and less imposing than the menacing shadow it cast. An eyebrow rose curiously over half-lidded, fist-sized imp eyes.

Black-and-White Morality: The Dungeon Keeper world works by this trope, having only two sides for people to be on. The side of the Light Gods, which is Good, and that of the Dark Gods, which is Evil.

"It has to be so amazing, working directly under the Avatar," the orange-haired fairy continued, batting her eyelashes at him. "Have you known him for long?" Olon inclined his head, causing his black mane to fall over his eyes.

Blood Knight: The default state of Horned Reapers, who get angry when they can't kill anything.

Blood Magic: Blood contains mana, which can be used to power magical things, as said in A Capture, when wondering how to power something:

Blood. [...] the mana within is easily assimilated.

Blow You Away: In Nero's Spell (Part 2), a vampire "unleashes a gust of wind" against Marda, as Nero orders with "You! Blow that troll away from the reaper!"

Two imps huddled in the corner, forgotten as ghosts and vampires clashed with reaperbots and Rabixtrel. Despite the huge numerical disparity, the wraiths were not doing too well. The horned reaper even had the time to spare a glance at the odd little imps, if only because their supremely strange behaviour had caught his eyes. One of them had retrieved a piece of parchment from her backpack and was making little scratches on it as she watched the battle. A moment of observation later, he determined that the worker was counting kills, making a mark next to the number of each bot. Which meant the stupid doodle with two horns and the longest bar next to it was supposed to represent him. Wait a minute. The reaper snorted in anger as another oddity caught his eye.

The note-taking imp squealed in surprise when a shadow fell over her and a red-scaled hand as big as her head reached down and lifted her by her backpack. A moment later, she found herself face to teeth with the Reaper.

"WHO?" the enraged beast snarled, and a gust of searing hot breath blew the imp's helmet off her head. A claw-tipped digit was pointing at the score on the imp's chart that was higher than his own.

Ears pressed to her head, the imp lifted her short arm and pointed up, prompting the reaper's pupil-less white eyes to look in the same direction. They widened at the sight of a giant, frozen hand gripping the handle of a sword sized perfectly for its use. The giant bar of sharp metal rotated, spun, and whistled through the mass of ghosts, slaying anything in its path. Rabixtrel threw his head back and let out an ear-splitting roar. He tossed aside the imp and used the shoulders of a reaperbot as a springboard to launch himself into the thickest concentration of flying ghosts, his competitiveness roused.

Body Snatcher: Keepers in general do this with their minions via possession spells.

Born of Magic: Dust bunnies and other things gain life when exposed to enough of Metallia's power. As described in Ward Trouble.

Bounty Hunter: The Silver Hawks, who were introduced when they started hunting Ami.

Though they have decided to stop hunting Ami and Co until a legal ruling can be made on whether or not it is acceptable to take contracts on an Empress, Keeper or not, who holds her throne by a literal divine mandate.

"Master! I have brought what you require!" A short-haired blond vampire called happily as she appeared before Zarekos "Begone, brainless buffoon," he sighed "Note to self: do not chose any more vampires candidates purely on looks."

Delivering Presents: "The imp-made engravings had nudity and intertwined bodies too, but they were more stylized and alternated with gory battle scenes. Ami winced a little when she spotted an engraving that mixed both themes."

"I find out that all portals leading out of my domain have been mysteriously blocked from the outside. At the same time." In sharp contrast to the Keeper's expression, his voice remained cheerful. It only got a bit louder when the rattling of the knight shaking in his armour threatened to drown it out. "Mysterious. And synchronous. Mysteriously synchronous."

Cathy: "I bet this wasn't what you were expecting when she told you that all the girls where she came from wore something like this."

Bring My Brown Pants: From Ultimatum: The implication is that Kivith's robes seem to have a urine stain on them:

Kivith's footsteps echoed through the hall as he hurried towards his master, his cheeks burning with shame. With every step, the wet cloth of his apprentice robes slapped against his shins, reminding him that it was stained with bright yellow liquid. Normally, he wouldnt have cared  potion accidents happened  but today, his master stood at the massive gilded table seating most of the Duchys highest nobles

But for Me, It Was Tuesday: The Devourer's high priest is attacked by slave women whose children he had sacrificed. Upon learning this fact, he still can't identify any of the women beating him to death.

Torian is a strong warlock, but every time he tries to curry favor with Mercury he fails miserably. He eventually achieves fame with his undead-taming spell, but that's a more useful tool for the good guys than the bad guys.

Note that Torian's crowing achievement may not be a subversion: given how Crowned Death (god of undeath) is in the Warpath arc, Torian really does not want his name right next to the spell. Even Torian understood just how much trouble he was in. And then he improved the spell to affect undead in enormous numbers, only to be possessed by the gestalt mind that animates them.

Tserk, the tentacle monster. It just can't seem to catch a break.

Lishika's teleportside-effect has caused her repeated mishaps, apparently even setting her on fire once.

"That- that deviant monster! What did she do to her?"Anise demanded to know, her cheeks matching her eyes in colour. "I don't know." Dandel turned over the scroll, revealing two blackened lines where she had been reading. "Someone has censored that part of the letter. Oh, and there's an annotation in a different handwriting." The fae stared at the much neater characters. "This part was not factually correct and based on a misunderstanding. Nothing untoward was planned nor occurred," she read. "Yeah, right, who'd believe that?" Tilia snorted.

I believe his exact words were, the King began, imitating the Avatars impatient and disdainful tone nearly perfectly, just stop provoking the bookworm and she wont bother you. Duke Libasheshtan remained silent as he parsed the absurdity of the statement.

I expect you would be disappointed by the results. Shes more than happy to stay with her books unless forced into action, as I have repeatedly pointed out before. King Ral snorted. The day he started to believe that the Dark Empress had an elaborate city conquest plan just lying around with no intention to use it was the day hed abdicate due to senility.

Cast from Money: Gold is turned into the magic for spells by dungeon hearts.

Anise felt something slimy wrap around her left ankle, and suddenly found herself suspended upside down in the air, prompting alarmed cries from her sisters. She gulped. This could end badly. She suddenly wished that their outfits offered some more coverage than swimsuits. On the bright side, however, she could make out a few eyes in the centre of the mass from her elevated vantage point, and she still had her chair Much better. Now- OW!

Chekhov's Gun: The warlock who turned his own head invisible. The invisibility spell derived from that is used to rescue Jadeite.

Chekhov's Gunman: Both the Avatar and Keeper Mukrezar are mentioned in the twelth chapter, "Ambush", with the implication that they are dead.

Chess Motifs: Ami's first dungeon has one, with the "white and black chequerboard pattern of the floor [and] the bas-reliefs of chess figures on the walls."

The Chosen People: A Dwarf says that the Light Gods blessed his people with the ability to live underground.

Clothing Damage: A Running Gag, bordering on Mahou Sensei Negima! levels. Often due to a combination of magically conjured clothes meeting Anti-Magic wards. More recently, Crowned Death, The Mighty Tyrant, and The Unraveller of Mysteries teamed up, creating a curse of sorts that degrades anything in Ami's dungeon. Including clothes. Especially clothes. The only stopgap solution seems to be having everything in the dungeon decorated in aesthetics that evoke either Ami's Ice powers, or emphasize "fertility" (in contrast to the God of Death) or "fragility" (contrasting the God of Strength). In other words, for clothes and other items to not rot away, they have to be either transparent, pornographic, or barely there.

Cloudcuckoolander: Mukrezar may be an irredeemable monster who callously massacred an entire country, but he's also a pretty quirky guy who manages to be Plucky Comic Relief in his own demented way. He, among other things, has a strange obsession with using cursed gold rings as part of his plans, despite them having a previously standing track record of zero, and also claimed that he was going to bake the biggest cake in the world. He then baked that cake by throwing a huge amount of gold at an Underworld city which got too greedy and sold him all their food stocks, pushing the whole settlement to near starvation. At the same time Mukrezar was attacking the keeper who supplied their stocks. His plan the whole time was to extort them into proclaiming him lord and master of their town. That's right, he laid low an entire Underworld city, by baking a cake. Sadly the cake tasted so terrible Mukrezar couldn't stand to eat it.

Cold-Blooded Torture: A standard keeper tactic of course. But also comes up as a challenge when one of Ami's schemes requires her to make ghosts out of undead, since the necromancy only works when the various zombies were tortured to death. One of her Dark Mistresses is actually too effective, torturing a zombie into turning and requiring Ami to order her to "torture it to death properly."

Conservation of Ninjutsu: Ami doesn't like to let her troops get killed, so she uses a small number of powerful troops, such as the reaperbots, the youma, and her golems, and the main characters play a pivotal role in the battles. Enemy keepers prefer to Zerg Rush.

Cooldown Hug: Ami gives one to Jadeite after he gets angry about Eternal Sleep.

Underworlder Portal installations, which connect to other ones, first seen in "Into the Portal", are described as:

The portal reminded Ami of pictures of Stonehenge. Four arches, composed of two tall stone pillars with a horizontal crossbar on top, were arranged in such a way that they touched at the corners. The area inside the square they formed glowed with hazy images of faraway territories and emitted a warm orange light

a structure that resembled a canopy tent, except that it was made of stone and rested on four thick, round pillars. Within the structure wavered a water-like surface, forming an upright oval that looked like a full-length mirror.

Covered in Gunge: Here: One of the warlocks prefers imagining Cathy's blood-splattered body being covered in "sweet syrup instead".

Covered with Scars: From Strange Trolls: Trolls that have been training and fighting against vampires and other undead for fifteen years, have been described as:

Her gaze turned to a round object sitting on one of the lab benches when she felt the magic around her react to it. The crystal ball, for it looked as if it had emerged straight from a fortune teller's tent. A glowing white nimbus surrounded it, and fog within was swirling to form a face.

One of the devices in [Nicodemus Asbraxe's] study alerted him that a Keeper was searching for some unspecified item, and the fence quickly pulled his hood down until his face was hidden in a pool of darkness out of which only a long, mangy beard protruded. He then muttered a well-practised incantation, and a picture formed in the air above his coffee table, showing him the prospective client[.]

Curb-Stomp Battle: Has happened several times instory so far. Instances include Jadeite vs Arachne's second dungeon, Mercury's army vs the keeper on the coastline, Zarekos vs Mercury and Jadeite, and any instance where Mercury attacks a dungeon whose owner is banished or dead (except Zarekos, who isn't really gone at all).

The fight against Morrigan, the muscle-bound giant Acolyte of Azzathra is notable in that it is arguably the single most one-sided fight in the entire series. Morrigan is thrashed so hard some minions are actually unable to fall back to pre-established secondline defenses.

On a non-keeper note, the fight with the Underworld Army as Mercury strikes at them before they strike at her, while they're still in the Underworld no less.

Back to curb stomping keepers, Mukrezar took out the entirety of Crowned Death's intelligent troops with a collapsible ceiling.

When Ami is forced to abandon her holdings on the Avatar Islands, she defeats Dumb Muscle Morrigan again. The fight is ludicrously one-sided- to the point Ami actually considers Morrigan's forces collateral. Later, when interrogating Monteraine (the only one of Morrigan's minions to survive) she actually has to think about it a moment before she remembers Morrigan from their previous encounter. He didn't make much of an impression.

Curse Cut Short: The "shit" from "flies over shit" said by Baron Leopold in "Beryl's Plan" when asking about what's drawing Keepers to the Avatar Islands:

"Good. One less Keeper in the world. Have you found out yet what's attracting them to that desolate place? They are over it like flies over-" The Baron fell silent and nodded a greeting as he passed two halberd-wielding guards, causing them to salute.

A normal, positive painting, under default Dungeon Heart configurations, will eventually be altered into something disturbing.

When Ami's dungeon is under direct attack by the dark god Crowned Death things start falling apart or warp in eerie ways as his rot-everything power infects them. Strangely, it is noted that parts of her Dungeon under observation are more reluctant to succumb to the effect.

"Cathy, can you cut my hair please?" She asked, producing a pair of scissors from thin air. "I'm not much of a barber," the blonde cautioned. "Well, I don't think the imps could do a good job, and I'd prefer not to have any of my other subordinates get too close to me with sharp tools."

Dark Is Evil: The creatures of the Underworld, and Keepers in particular, are rightfully feared and hated by the surface world.

David vs. Goliath: Many of the conflicts with her enemies are like this, often with the enemy also underestimating her.

Deal with the Devil: The title of the third chapter is A Deal with the Devil, which refers to Ami's deal with the demonic Horned Reaper, which Ami mentally noted:

sure did look like a Western illustration of the devil

Death March: Soon-to-be human sacrifices for a ritual in the name of a God of Evil, Crowned Death, are mind-controlled and marched to the sacrificial site, with survival only relevant if they can't last until the ritual in a few days.

Decapitation Strike: The entirety of Crowned Death's intelligent troops gets taken out by Mukrezar with a collapsible ceiling.

Derelict Graveyard: The Dreadfog Isle Exclusion Zone, where ships disappeared, due to priests of Crowned Death and other servants of that god sinking them.

Divine Intervention: During Nero's Armageddon Battle, Mercury was about to die to the eldest dragon in existence until she managed to trick her into a sacrificial pool. The Queen of Darkness herself was more than pleased for this worthy sacrifice, killing the creature in an instant.

Doorstopper: It's over 810,000 words and still going. Even if you just keep to the entries by Pusakuronu, you will spend hours reading through the story.

Double-Meaning Title: The chapter, Staff Difficulties, about problems regarding a magical staff, and the problems that Ami has, controlling her warlocks, which are her staff, as in workers.

Do Wrong, Right: Dr. Mizuno is concerned upon hearing about Ami getting drunk at the victory party held for defeating the assortment of Keepers, but consoles herself that the ensuing hangover would have taught Ami better. On being told that there was no hangover due to the alcohol being magically created and temporary...

"Ami, that can't be healthy!" she shouted as she leaned toward the crystal ball. "Liquid suddenly disappearing from cells that are already using it - I shudder to think what that does to a metabolism." Very sternly, she continued "Next time you want to get drunk, use a real drink! Doctor's order!"

Draco in Leather Pants: In-Universe example. The fairy sisters, proving that there is no justice in the Dungeon Keeper world, keep assuming the best about Jadeite because he's pretty, even as they assume the worst about Ami.

"Aren't- Aren't you going to convince them by revealing your grotesque and horrifying true form now?" Snyder asked, a hint of disappointment quivering in his voice.

Dress-Coded for Your Convenience: In the episode Out-of-Dungeon Experiences, it is stated that the Dark Gods have a dress code for Keepers. It is even reported that those who veer from it suffer embarrassing wardrobe malfunctions.

The tailor who told Ami this, however, might have been lying in order to get her to choose something less heroic-looking, however.

"Master! I have brought what you require!" A short-haired blond vampire called happily as she appeared before Zarekos [...] "Begone, brainless buffoon," he sighed "Note to self: do not chose any more vampires candidates purely on looks."

Dungeon Bypass: Amis tactic against Zarekos. She attacks him from The underworld, where he hasn't set up any defenses, and is a location where no one other than Ami has attacked from before.

Dying Moment of Awesome: In "Assault on Wemos", Wemos. Despite being a very sad Butt-Monkey for Emperor Zarekos up to this point, he goes out in a fairly badass way, helping take out his enemy by doing so, stopping him from using his dungeon heart by proxy.

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Ear Ache: In Strategy Meeting, when Ami is removing a frog clamped to her ear, there's some slight pain:

Ami sighed, busy with removing the fat frog from her ear. The animal had clamped down on one of her small blue earrings, which added some pain to the general discomfort of being attacked by a slimy amphibian.

"AAaaaAhhhHHHhhh!" The skin of her imp-cheeks fluttered in the wind and tried to crawl to the back of her skull, and the airflow stung in her eyes as the world spun like a top around her. Had she been capable of a coherent thought aside from "Eject! Eject!" it would probably have been along the lines of 'Darn it!' at the failure of this workaround.

Elite Mook: The Death Priests have proven to be some of the most dangerous foes Mercury has encountered. At one point it is shown that at least some of them are capable of casting three spells simultaneously.

Ami's feral youma monster also counts. Nothing aside from the Lesser Aspect is even capable of harming it, it tunnels straight through stone, and eats magic. When it's created by accident it homes in on the enemy dungeon heart like a guided missile and devours it.

Elite Army: Ami's forces have fought, on average, at a four-to-one disadvantage in every engagement. They have yet to be decisively defeated.

"I recently fought an enemy Keeper who had a spell to bring all of my employees to a battlefield of his choice. I analysed the magic and found out that it only works on creatures above a certain size," Ami explained. "If everyone carried a potion like that and used it at the right time, then the spell would be essentially harmless."

Empire with a Dark Secret: Ami suspected the Shining Concord Empire of being this after learning that in all major government buildings there was an Oracle Tower - a structure that closely resembles the temple Zarekos was using in his bid to become a god.

The Light Gods have jossed the theory that the idea that the towers are evil in their own right or that they have been used for evil purposes by the SCE, but they refuse to explain their original purpose in Mercury's hearing, for fear of giving her any ideas.

The Keepers are almost continually in this state, which is a major reason as to why the Light Side is still holding on.

When Crowned Death discovers that his plan worked after all, but that the Unraveller captured Ami and planned on withholding her he flies into a blind rage. The Unraveller gleefully lets him past to get at Ami... only to backstab him once he is distracted.

And once Crowned Death starts attacking The Unraveller for her betrayal, Azzathra takes advantage of this and backstabs Crowned Death as well.

Entertainingly Wrong: The forces of Good manage to keep reasonably well-informed on Mercury's actions, but they tend to misinterpret things, because:

Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Or vice versa. The Light Gods literally can't comprehend the motives of the Dark Gods, and the minions Ami has gathered (with the exception of the Cathy-Jered-Synder trio and possibly Jadeite) seem to regard any benevolent action on her part as simply something to try and lull the forces of Good into complacency.

Evil Counterpart: Both Ami and Mukrezar are inventive and imaginative in their tactics, both have made innovations in magic that no-one else can understand. Their personalities are even diametrically opposed to each other - Ami is quiet and studious, Mukrezar is charismatic and goofy.

Evil Counterpart Race: Presumably what the dark elves of the Dark underworld are, to the normal elves of the Light surface.

Exact Words: Defied - the Light Gods deliberately leave the terms of their agreements vague so that they may stick to their spirit rather than their letter. Amadeus himself notes at one point that technically, his agreement to not attack Mercury doesn't apply to current circumstances...

Amadeus: "Still, attacking immediately without some kind of grace period would be bad form."

Exhausted Eye Bags: After the Sleep Deprivation, to be awake for over 24 hours, to prepare for a difficult battle in a week, Ami's companions are described thus: "dark circles under her companions' eyes".

I said My skills might be a little bit rusty after centuries of disuse, he hissed angrily. What of it? Sailor Mercury suppressed the urge to face-palm, if only because doing that while running wasnt safe. The beast had just slacked off for centuries? Not even Usagi was that bad!

"Three arguing warlocks stood around a waist-high pedestal covered in schematics. One kept tapping the blackboard behind him with his index finger, smearing the scrawled runes on it in the process. The other held up an open book like a ward against ignorance, pointing at a certain passage. While the two shouted at each other, the third covered his forehead with one palm while glaring at the wax dripping onto his notes from a toppled candelabra."

Fake-Hair Drama: When Ami is made bald by a Dark God, she cares what her love interest will think of it, and makes a fake wig with her magic, and when her love interest notices that the wig is deteriorating, she badly lies about it, but he doesn't notice. In the end, she grows her hair back, magically.

Family Title: The chapter, "Sisters", about the sisters of Ami and Tiger, who get recognized as sisters in the chapter.

Father's Quest: Baron Sodnil wants to go on one for his daughter, Iden, who has been captured by a Keeper, Keeper Mercury, the protagonist, but he needs the support of his country's army, and they're not willing to take that risk, as of the story at the end of 2019.

Feathered Fiend: From "Ultimatum": Ami worries about the possibility when she disturbs some crows:

A group of crows cawed in surprise when a sinister presence joined them on top of the inaccessible rock spire that served as their nesting grounds. ... Ami briefly tracked them with her gaze, worried that they would come back to defend their nests. The crows back at Rei's shrine were somewhat aggressive, and the last thing she needed was being pecked at while she was preoccupied with not slipping on the weather-worn stone.

ALL of the Dark Gods that have appeared thus far have been mentioned repeatedly before becoming plot-relevant.

Fireballs: An ability of at least one Horned Reaper, Sailor Mars, and at least one bounty hunter mage.

Fisher King: Played with. The lands around a dungeon heart are corrupted with energies from the Dark Gods and generally themed on the God in question; they are influenced often, but not necessarily always, by the Keepers themselves. Played straighter with Ami's experimental heart designs which, due to the attempts to reduce corruption, created a strong manifestation of this trope as a side effect.

"This way," Ami gestured, pointing with a transparent hand over her shoulder. Ice made grinding noises with the movement, but the sound abruptly stopped when the water-filled simulacrum disappeared, leaving only a near-inaudible popping sound of inrushing air.

the the front half of a fish. Everything behind the main fins dissolved into a trail of indistinct mist.

Formerly Sapient Species: Chaotic magic can transform intelligent creatures into these, altering their bodies and minds until they count as "mindless neutral creature[s]".

"Freaky Friday" Flip: In a botched possession, the first Horned Reaper and Ami switch bodies. The Reaper is furious, wrestling his original body nakedly. Cue unexpected spectators watching that scene, and the unintended results...

Random Goblin: "Go go Keeper!"

Friendly Enemies: Ami and The Light. They both are on the same side morally, respect each other, and have pretty good reasons to be in conflict anyway. And they're prepared to help each other as well, particularly in an Enemy Mine situation. The Light even helps Mercury escape The Unraveller for nothing, and Mercury passes all her research and data on Dungeon Hearts. Doesn't get much friendlier.

From Bad to Worse: Poor Ami can never catch a break. Mostly because she keeps pissing off ever-more-powerful foes. Once she starts pissing off just one deity she promptly gets multipleGods annoyed with her. The author has said that this is largely because if she wasn't constantly in over her head she'd rapidly become unstoppable.

Frontline General: In the first few arcs Ami tends to be deeply involved in each battle. Later on, as she gains stronger and more reliable minions she learns to delegate more, but as one of the strongest fighters in her army she still tends to get her hands dirty.

"Help me barricade the door, you worthless fools!" the troll who had burst in earlier shouted, struggling to drag a wall cupboard towards the door. "Right!'"' Stirred into action by fear, the Underworld denizens started piling up furniture in front of the entrance, cursing and shouting as they got into each other's way.''

Fusion Dance: Keepers have the ability to possess their minions, this gives the keeper access to skills and powers possessed by the minion in question. This gets taken one step farther with youma, whose appearance is determined in part due to their self-image. As a result, when possessed they become literal amalgams of Mercury and whatever they looked like before. Yes, that sometimes means demons and imps in sailor uniforms with makeup and everything.

Taken yet further by Tiger, who possessed Mercury while she was also possessed by the Dark God Crowned Death. In that case, not only did Mercury and Tiger's features blend, but Mercury's armor fused with her/them. resulting in a towering, muscled amazon with metal skin and the burning Crown of Crowned Death.

Torian, Ami began in a voice that had the warlock edge away from her. She turned towards him, one eyebrow that now hung down to her chin twitching. Did you, by any chance, only expand the target region?

Her armoured boots slipped on wet ice and almost sent her stumbling into an oddly-shaped pool of ice water. ... "That's one strange puddle," Jered commented as he peered into depression. "It almost looks like a four-fingered hand." "Not a hand." Cathy said, paling as she stepped over one of the cracks extending outward from the hole. "That's a footprint." "What? That would mean that the owner's toes are longer than you are!"

Giving Radio to the Romans: There have been numerous comment threads on this story as to how Mercury can do this in ways that will have minimal benefit to the Dark Gods if the knowledge passes to their followers. So far, none of these suggestions have been taken up.

The Guards Must Be Crazy: Played with. While infiltraiting one of Morrigan's dungeons, Monteraine is able to bluff her way through an absurd number of checkpoints- justified because she was a former minion of Morrigan, he was currently banished- and thus the minion-particular wards didn't automatically recognize her (or anyone at all), and his minions didn't hold any particular loyalty to him.

Jadeite was sitting on the highest outcropping of the spire, pouting. Ami worried that she had offended his pride when she offered to carry him for a change, allowing him to relax some more after straining himself so. Her youma body was certainly large and muscular enough for such an undertaking. She shook her head at his reaction. Men.

From "In Transit", after shooting down one girl's idea, and being given a different girl and her idea:

Jadeite stared at the fairy and remained silent, his expression unreadable. Finally, he shook his head and spoke "Girls and their silly ideas.

Genius Loci: The way dungeons, dungeon hearts, and the corruption interact with the rest of the world (especially the surface) has shades of this.

Ghostly Chill: Ghosts with enough ghost energy, that are durable enough not to be popped like a bubble, produce such a chill in their wake.

Her armoured boots slipped on wet ice and almost sent her stumbling into an oddly-shaped pool of ice water. ... "That's one strange puddle," Jered commented as he peered into depression. "It almost looks like a four-fingered hand." "Not a hand." Cathy said, paling as she stepped over one of the cracks extending outward from the hole. "That's a footprint." "What? That would mean that the owner's toes are longer than you are!"

Girls with Moustaches: After being shaved courtesy of the Unraveler of Mysteries preparing to vivisect her, KeeperMercury looks for a quick and dirty way to get her hair back. So she has one of her warlocks modify the "Beastly Beard Booster" spell. The results can be accurately summed by her reaction to the modified spell.

Godhood Seeker: Zarekos, an already quite powerful vampire, is attempting to ascend to godhood when Ami encounters him. Later, when Ami asks one of her own minions whether Zarekos thought he was a god, she's answered that he wasn't that delusional — he was planning to become one, yes, but he was fully aware of his current limitations.

Godzilla Threshold: Several times but the most prominent is stopping Crowned Death's High Temple. The followers of the Light were willing to work with the Dark Empress, one of the most notorious Keepers AKA Sailor Mercury, to stop it.

GoldSilverCopper Standard: In Ambush, there's mention of "coppers" as a kind of currency, and Keepers' money is represented in gold coins, but a gold coin isn't a sign of being connected to Keepers, so some surface nations use gold coins as well.

Gone Horribly Right: Ami's idea of using a Dominate Undead spell to take over an undead dungeon heart worked beautifully. Unfortunately, since the heart was undead, doing so connected her mind to Crowned Death, who really doesn't like her.

Similarly, modifying the Dominate Undead spell to affect thousands of undead at once was also perfectly effective. But doing so wound up partially reconstituting the spirit powering them, and having it possess the caster. Poor Torian...

Jadeite is primarily Mercury's military adviser alongside Cathy. Also something of a bodyguard.

Tiger is a (self titled) princess...

Snyder is something of an adviser on various deities, and so fills the role of court priest.

Erasmus used to be the Court Wizard before his death; Torian fills that role now.

Good Hurts Evil: Holy wards, holy spells, and temples of the Light Gods all cause instinctive fear and disgust in creatures of evil...and those tainted by dark forces, such as Ami.

Good Is Dumb: All over the place. The tendency in the story is for all good characters to assume the worst about any and all acts by team evil at the drop of a hat, followed shortly by being a jerkass towards those perceived as evil. And Keepers are at the top of this list. Even those directly ordered by and given hints by the Light Gods themselves still treats Ami with all the same distrust they throw at other keepers, twisting those (very real) God's words if necessary to justify their viewpoint.

Good Princess, Evil Queen: The Sailor Senshi are looking for the Moon Princess which they think is the only way to defeat the evil Dark God, Queen Metallia. They are opposed by what is basically her High Priestess, Queen Beryl.

Good Running Evil: In a fairly short period of time Ami ends up boss of a veritable swarm of evil minions, each convinced they are serving a powerful conqueror who has barely known defeat. Well, they are it's just she's subtly trying to do good rather than destroy things. By attacking other Keepers and evil warlords she is still being heroic, and stays in-character as a dungeon keeper.

Good vs. Good: Whenever Ami goes up against the Light Gods or their servants. They genuinely mean well, and so does she, but the conflict remains.

Gossip Evolution: The tales of Mercury's deviance, the tales of Mercury beating up the various Big Bads and powerful monsters of the Underworld (usually while naked), and the growing tales of her power and cunning. She later invokes this to solve the insubordination problem.

Great Escape: Breaking Dwarf Master Smiths so Ami can learn how to forge Adamantine is discussed, but tabled as a possible, but unlikely plan.

Green-Eyed Monster: After losing her most important memories, grasping at straws trying to keep anything of her former sense of self and identity, gaining knowledge of what it's like to have friends, and then having essentially all her dreams come true, Tiger then comes to the realization that no, these aren't her memories, she has no friends, she's powerless, and the thought that all her dreams had come true is all lies. In short, Tiger is jealous of Ami, and is acting out because of that.

A subverted one, in Ambush, when Jared is using Ami as a Human Shield:

EVERYONE STOP! Jered shouted, causing an interruption in the melee as the combatants turned to look at him. Incidentally, this also postponed the meeting between the blue-haired girls heel and his crotch.

Before Dandel could take another shot at the creature, she saw Cerasse put her weight on the contested staff and use it like a lever, ramming it between the death priest's legs in a move that obviously caught the undead mage by surprise.

From Assault on Wemos: Not precisely a hiring, but close... It's apparently how Zarekos chose his vampire candidates, given how he responded to a Brainless Beauty failing a task:

"Note to self: do not chose any more vampires candidates purely on looks."

Possibly the reason why Isolda, a Dark Mistress, who was likely hired by Jared, who might've been Distracted by the Sexy.

Holding Back the Phlebotinum: Ami loses the mantle because of a very disappointing blunder, where she fails to use her Mercury Goggles's see through illusions function.

Hollywood Tactics: Averted magnificently. Especially evident in the Avatar Island Battles and the Battle of Dreadfog Island. Zarekos uses a three-pronged assault, flanking maneuvers, and ambushes. In the Battle of Dreadfog Island, Crowned Death's forces use the sun to blind Mercury's forces and approach under cover of a diversion. Later in the same battle, Mercury uses harrassment and area-denial to rob Keeper Clairmonte of the benefits offered by a Dungeon's home turf advantage.

[Ami] felt herself pulled toward [Jared] roughly, and then used as a human shield. EVERYONE STOP! Jered shouted, causing an interruption in the melee as the combatants turned to look at him. Incidentally, this also postponed the meeting between the blue-haired girls heel and his crotch. GOBLINS! Harm this girl, and you will draw the direct and personal ire of a Keeper! he shouted.

Hypocrite: Azzaratha's temple servants. While they may have a point in that Mercury cheated during her duel with the Reaper, they themselves are highly biased and specifically set the rules and match up to ensure Mercury would lose. They're real sore losers like that.

A growl sound came from the pink-haired elf. "I hate him hate him hate him HATE HIM sooo much! He's cheating!" he shouted, pounding the table with his fist. "What's wrong, your Hypocrisy?" the imp butler asked as he approached, carrying a tray with a steaming kettle and a cup full off black liquid. "Underhandedness is to be approved of!" "He stole my trick!"

I Am Spartacus: Played straight by a villain, in that Mukrezar's plan with the magic rings revolves around whoever is wearing them turning into copies of himself, confusing people as to where Mukrezar really is, or who is the real Mukrezar.

A horrible thought almost made her gasp out loud. Could it be that he was gay? She needed another drink! A moment later, she settled back against him, her thirst slaked. This required some careful observation.

I Want Them Alive: The Light, after realizing Ami is not pure evil. Also Crowned Death, after some point.

Imagine Spot: Eline in Umbra's Report, immediately following her capture. She pictures Mercury as a towering, lecherous, naked amazon. It is hilarious.

Immortal Ruler: Dungeon Keepers, who are immortal due to the Dungeon Heart that lets them control territory. They rule and are immortal because of the same device, and can only be overthrown by being killed, or the destruction of the Dungeon Heart.

Impeded Communication: Ami is prevented from contacting her dungeon twice, when assaulting Salthalls, due to unexpected events reducing her magical abilities that she uses.

Implacable Man: Nothing Ami throws at the Avatar can stop him for long.

Ami had both of her hands raised high over her head as she struggled to pronounce the unfamiliar syllables of the spell. A clean circle of ground had expanded in front of her, pushing a ring-shaped wave of clogging blood outward as it grew in diameter. The magical circle's perimeter burst into icy flame, and thirteen evenly-spaced flickering runes appeared in the burning curtain.

Judicial Wig: As seen in Corruption?, Audshul's human judges have them, as seen with Evercalm's judge:

Behind the high wooden podium in the middle sat a wrinkly man who could only be the judge. Powder was trickling down from his white, curly wig onto the hammer resting before him as he leaned forward, looking Ami up and down.

Unintentionally. After slaying the self-proclaimed Emperor Zarekos, Ami has been given his title of Empress Mercury, Ruler of the Avatar Isles by the Light Gods. The full implications of this have yet to be fully seen.

Later on, an Orc attempts this by trying to kill Cathy. He fails and had a 50-50 chance of surviving his injuries. Then he gets punished.

Knowledge Broker: Keeper Midori. He provides Ami information on what is threatening her dungeon, in exchange for requests to become a noble or royal, which she can grant, as she's an empress.

Knuckle Cracking: In Surprise Guest, when a bar patron is talking and laughing about burning the place down, another patron responses like so:

One of the nervous trolls turned to glare at the dark-clad figure. "You think thats amusing? Shut up or Ill show you something really amusing!" He cracked his knuckles threateningly.

Maka look like a girl in that dress!" one of the goblins taunted, pointing a crooked finger at another, who promptly picked up a wooden stool and swung it by one of its three legs, clobbering the mocker into the ground.

"Maka IS girl, idiot!" the still fuku-clad goblin crossed her arms and huffed.

Jadeite couldn't have been more nervous if someone had dumped a ticking time bomb onto his lap. The comparison was uncharitable to the red-faced girl who was using his legs as a pillow, but he found it fitting.

Laser-Guided Amnesia: Discussed in "A Small Deception", where Mercury says she wiped the memories of her torture victims. But, actually, they were just unconscious.

In a stealth crossover with Ranma ½, Nephrite's plan of "inspiring" a young girl into cooking using cursed kitchen items to drain life energy backfires when the young girl's family makes him stay and enjoy her creations. Hilarity Ensues when he collapses in Beryl's court due to food poisoning.

Mukrezar. He took a bite of his "world's biggest cake" and it tasted absolutely horrid.

she paused to focus all of her computer's sensors on the trapped dwarf. She didnt want to miss any sign he was lying when he answered her next question. [...] The readings on her screen indicated that the padding of the Dukes armour kept him warm under the ice, and there was no shivering to obscure his bodys involuntary reactions. There were no indications that he had been less than truthful, either. [...] this being her first attempt at using her computer as a lie detector[.]

magical trinkets and consumables- that reminds me..." [...] a ceramic disc with three embossed runes. "Here, that's for you. I acquired an extra." Cathy looked at the ceramic amulet resting on her open palm and traced the golden lines with one finger. "Magical? What does it do?" "One-use shield charm. Crack it to release the spell. It's meant as an emergency defence.

A wand introduced in "Abandon Ship, Part 2":

"Here, Empress. The simplest of the tools granted to you." Olon produced an unadorned white wand from his bag and offered it to Ami. [...] "That's a weapon," Olon clarified. "Three shots. Use on dark angels. Wasted on anything stronger. Flashy."

Literal Metaphor: Arachne telling Alphel and Morrigan that "what they don't know about Mercury will get them burnt." They don't know that Jadeite can create portals to the Underworld, filling their dungeons with lava.

Also, when Tiger accused Ami of having "sicked tireless, bloodthirsty telemarketers on people", she meant it literally, said "telemarketers" being vampires.

In Ultimatum She shows up at the City of Salthalls and requests an audience with the Duke. Because she lacks an army, there is little chance of that. When he refuses (and his soldiers attempt to shoot her with a ballista) she takes on the entire city single-handedly.

Living Lie Detector: From A New Arrival, the "Judge's Eye gift", which appears to tell if people are speaking the truth, is used by Abbot Durval uses on Ami, is presumably given by the Light Gods, and works through eye contact with the subject, given the name. Although, he doesn't seem to need to be looking them straight in the eye as they speak.

Load-Bearing Boss: Invoked, Ami rigged the ceilings above her Dungeon Hearts to collapse if she dies to prevent anybody else from taking and using them.

Made of Indestructium: From "A Better Plan?", Ami's analysis of the substance, Adamantine, gives this trope to items made of it:

from what she could determine, it seemed to be all but indestructible. High temperatures, acids, enough force to break a steel girder - nothing so far had been able to damage the metal. [...] While the confirmation of the materials near-invulnerability was reassuring in a way, it also presented an enormous problem. How was she supposed to work with it if she couldnt shape it? Im missing something here, Ami concluded, pacing up and down. Someone has clearly forged it into this shape. Perhaps it needs to be in raw form?

Mad Scientist: All the warlocks have shades of this, as well as Ami herself. Invoked when she gives her friends a tour of the lab, as Ami puts on a Mad Scientist act as a joke.

The Unraveller of Mysteries is the patron God of mad scientists.

Magic A Is Magic A: Spells that aren't granted directly by a deity are generally devised by modifying an existing spell or studying a magical creature that can already do what the caster wants to accomplish.

the proper incantations for simplifying the arcane gestures. That convergence of three lines over there, for example, looks as if it could be summarised by a properly pronounced Sul rune." "Well, I don't actually have any formal training in spell creation," Ami admitted. When the abbot raised his eyebrows, she clasped her hands in front of herself. His teacher-like demeanour made her feel somewhat inadequate. "I can place some of the more common syllables, but I have never had the time to actually study how warlocks put chants and incantations together. For me, it's much easier to manipulate the magic directly using the dungeon heart. It is a fascinating subject though," she hurried to reassure him.

Ami had both of her hands raised high over her head as she struggled to pronounce the unfamiliar syllables of the spell. A clean circle of ground had expanded in front of her, pushing a ring-shaped wave of clogging blood outward as it grew in diameter. The magical circle's perimeter burst into icy flame, and thirteen evenly-spaced flickering runes appeared in the burning curtain. [...] Ami's voice reached a crescendo as she refused to let herself be distracted by the plight of her comrades. In response, lines of fire pulsed and drew a pentagram in the centre of the summoning circle. Suddenly, the entire room coloured with the bright orange tones of an active furnace when a tornado of flame exploded from the ground, sending large chunks of the summoning circle flying.

"The traditional means would be a kiss by a prince or princess," Jered supplied with a grin, "fortunately, being a Keeper should make you some kind of Princess of Darkness." ... "That's just a children's story," the red-headed acolyte blurted out quickly. Transformation magic usually isn't permanent. Just give it some time."

Magitek: Mercury's decidedly modern approach to magic is shaping up to be one of her greatest advantages so far.

all her clothes were conjured. Not many people can waste mana that thoughtlessly.

Manipulative Bitch: This is how the way both light side and dark side, except the Jered, Snyder, Cathy and Light Gods,may be, see her.

Memetic Badass: The forumites at Sufficient Velocity created a Chuck Norris-style list of The Dark Empress, you can read it at the awesome tab. The list also doubles as a Shrouded in Myth entry, as it's pretty much what almost everybody in the setting believes of her.

Mind-Control Device: The dungeon hearts do this to a minor degree with Keeper minions, mainly keeping them from attacking the Keeper. It's used as an explanation for why Being Tortured Makes You Evil in the Dungeon Keeper setting itself, as most minions can't easily break the bonds the Dungeon Heart places on them.

Mind Rape: Ami ends up doing this to Malleus. The experience is lethal for him, traumatic for her.

Much later the Unraveller almost takes this trope to a rather logical extreme. To elaborate: the Unraveller intends to Mind Vivisect Ami, though it is implied that Mind Rape will also occur - specifically, 'a few adjustments and improvements'.

Mundane Utility: Ami managed to turn her corrupted landscape into a massive windstorm that provided electricity for the dungeon, and has figured out how to take advantage of some of the other corruption effects to create hot-springs and geothermal power with the use of lava instead of wind.

What better way to use your new horned reaper than as a living smelter or water heater? After all fireballs are much more environmentally friendly than coal or gas.

Ghosts are terrifying, yet fragile; one good hit is enough to disperse them. What does Ami use? A giant fly-swatter wielded in her Keeper hand.

Mordor: What the lands the Keepers inhabit turn into due to the corruption of the Dungeon Heart. It has a side-effect of revealing the presence of a dungeon in the local area. The Avatar Islands are the best example. The continent had multiple Keepers warring over it, and despite their passing the land has not recovered. It most likely never will.

Mythology Gag: From Corruption?: When Ami muses on sacrificing gold in her temple, her Reaper says: "The temple is no wishing well, you dolt!", a reference to Dungeon Keeper, where sacrificing gold in the temple, in single-player, would receive "This is no wishing well, Keeper." as a response.

Ami's corrupted Shabon Spray has some very nasty effects on sensory organs:

the dark magic performed the same task of blinding and disorienting the targets that Mercury's usual chilly fog would have. [...] she saw monsters claw at their eyes in the darkness. Blood was flowing from their ears and noses.

From A Meddler Appears, a rat gets a bloody nose due to sniffing something from that came from a room with concentrated bile demon stench:

Ami dropped the loot unceremoniously in her own treasure chamber, where it landed on the ground with a soft thud. A rat scuttled out of the shadows and approached cautiously, twitching its nose as it sniffed the new box. Moments later, it let out an offended squeak and bounded away, bleeding from its nostrils. Bile demons, the young Keeper shuddered. A locked room would concentrate the smell...

Near-Rape Experience: In A Deal with the Devil (DARK), it's Inverted, when Ami's first Reaper is using rape as a threat, but she escapes by teleporting away:

[Ami] struggled to shake her head. "I don't trust you."

Which left him with a bit of a problem. [...] He had no problem with torture [...] Lack of experience [...] left most of his victims dead before any desirable results could be achieved. [...] Hmm, what could he do that wouldn't cause too much damage? He snorted at the thought. Him, worried about causing too much damage. Then he had a bright idea. She was a female, so...

"A stupid choice. I see you need some more 'convincing'."

Ami felt true terror at the malice expressed in those few words. Then, a scaled hand reached down, and grabbed a hold of the front of her sailor senshi uniform. Her body jerked as the demon gave the garment a violent tug, and with an agonised ripping noise, the front half came off. Oh no. No! No! NO! Not that! Ami froze in horror as she felt the chill of the dungeon air on the exposed skin of her chest. I wish I had died instead! I wish I was a real Keeper and knew how to get out of this situation!Having barely finished the panicked thought, she felt a surge of energy from the dungeon heart, as if she had just re-affirmed their connection. The next moment, she was gone.

Necromancer: There are a few, given there are necromancy spells, and followers of Crowned Death have the ability to raise the dead as undead minions.

New Life in Another World Bonus: When Ami arrives in Adushul, she becomes a Dungeon Keeper, making her effectively immortal, increasing her magic capacity, and gaining a place to call home, all at once. She also gets a Horned Reaper, one of the best fighters in Adushul.

Nigh-Invulnerability: Wards can radically reduce the effectiveness of offensive spells, and even stop physical blows that might otherwise prove lethal. Enough of them can make a spellcaster exceptionally difficult to harm.

Mercury's ice golems could be a lesser example. While they are harmed by magic and weapons, they are far more resilient than fleshy soldiers, as their bodies simply freeze over any wounds. Given access to enough water, they become nearly indestructible, which Mercury takes full advantage of for intimidation when possessing them.

Night of the Living Mooks: When Ami fights against a Incarnation of Extinction, a servant of Crowned Death, whose main attacking force is formed by Raising the Steaks with marine animals, but there are few Vampires and undead priests of Crowned Death as well.

Noble Fugitive: Ami, at the conclusion of the Avatar Islands Arc, due to getting the title of Empress.

Seeing something establishes an ephemeral, exploitable arcane link with it. Suffice it to say [in combination with a scrying device], you can use this to find out who is watching you, but not necessarily from where he is watching.

From A New Arrival, the "Judge's Eye gift", which appears to tell if people are speaking the truth, is used by Abbot Durval uses on Ami, is presumably given by the Light Gods, and works through eye contact with the subject, given the name. Although, he doesn't seem to need to be looking them straight in the eye as they speak.

Jadeite's portals, don't prevent things on the other side from going through, as shown with the first one seen, where a jet of lava rushes out.

Underworld Portal installations, don't cause atmosphere exchange between the locations they connect, shown when one connects to a very hot location, from a cool underground dungeon, and the temperature of the destination is only noticed when the portal is exited.

Non-Human Undead: There are undead octopuses, undead fish, undead coral, basically any sea life that wasn't also plant life, was a type of undead seen in the assault on a temple dedicated to death and undeath.

Noodle Implements: The tools that Mercury appears to be using in the incident described in the Nothing Is Scarier example include a live chicken. This is probably just to get people wondering what she did with it.

Noodle Incident: Mukrezar has had quite a few magical mishaps, which the Adviser Imp loves to bring up to embarrass him.

Nothing Is Scarier: Due to her aversion to torture, when faced with having to discipline her minions Ami is forced to bluff. She invents a device that combines a tracking spell and a general fear trap into a selective fear charm - and then knocks the offender (and a dark mistress) unconscious. When they revived the selective terror hits them, Ami then informs them that she wiped their memories to preserve her technique. In other words, whatever she did, she can do again, and it will be just as horrifying each time. Their imaginations do the rest.

She had thought that the references to Boris' homeland being an outpost of hell now had been hyperbole. She was surrounded on all sides by sulphurous wastelands and blackened rock formations, broken up only by patches and rivulets of lava that gaped like open, bloody wounds in the landscape.

No-Sell: The Avatar is almost untouchable in battle, and anything that might hurt him is instantly blocked by the Light Gods.

In fact, Ami quickly realizes that the only thing that actually slowed him down, single combat with herself and Cathy, only actually slowed him down because he was being careful not to kill them.

Surfacers are often horrified when impaling Ami's ice-simulacra fails to do much more than annoy her. Using glamour to make them match her true form, and even bleed, helps sell the injuries as believable, terrifying the opposition as the Dark Empress shrugs off telling strikes.

Not What It Looks Like: Tends to crop up a fair few occasions for Ami, much to her mortification, like the times when she's naked along with some of her minions.

Actions magically slowed, the dragon plummeted like a rock, unable to keep itself aloft. A moment before it struck the ground, the reaper blurred and leapt, swinging his scythe. The dragon's head separated from its neck before the giant body crashed, releasing a huge gout of hot blood. Rabixtrel landed on the corpse and screamed his triumph at the wavering soldiers.

Ami's chief warlock has this reaction after he insults the rest of the Senshi, thinking them weaker than Mercury. He realizes the depth of his error when Mercury informs him that she is the weakest of the Senshi.

Crowned Death's Priest Taleth, shown in "Dark Messenger", who coveys a request for Ami to desecrate the Avatar's Mantle.

One-Winged Angel: Played straight and subverted by most Dungeon Keepers as they can alter their forms. Hilarity Ensues when soon after the Cathy-Jered-Snyder trio learn Mercury is a Dungeon Keeper, they expect her to "reveal her true form." "But I'm human! I really look like this!"

Played somewhat straighter when Tiger rescued Ami after her possesion by Crowned Death. See Fusion Dance.

One of the spectres supporting the unfortunate vampiric Keeper forced its way into his gaping mouth, slid down his throat, and wrapped around his strained vocal chords. His screams died down as his neck bulged and swelled to grotesque proportions, allowing Zarekos to address his slaves without having to shout.

Our Elves Are Better: Bows and arrows are considered the "traditional elven weapon", and there are albino dark elves in the underworld.

The dungeon heart, while not being sentient, reacted according to its programming when it felt itself being accessed. User is intending to use my power to destroy her enemies? Check. User's blood? On the cover, coagulated but present. Check. Strong source of magical power? Oh hell yes! Check.

Properly activating an Oracle Tower, needs some potential to do so, as said by Camilla in Towers:

"I was [...] tested for oracle potential. Nobody in my family had enough to properly activate a tower, but I can manage the projection trance for a short time.

Physical Fitness Punishment: In Staff Difficulties, Ami punishes her warlocks with physical training when they went along with Torian's plans for the Calarine Staff. Although, they were supposed to have that training anyway:

all of you will attend Cathys training sessions from now on until further notice. Unauthorised absences will have to be explained to me personally. I will not be pleased about having to take time out of my busy schedule to deal with something like that.

Plethora of Mistakes: Well, Crowned Death... Stealing from the Empress... How's that working out for 'ya?

Poke in the Third Eye: Azzathra gives Ami one, in her Keeper Sight, when she sees him. It's described as "a hot poker being shoved into her inner eye"

Underworlder Portal installations, which connect to other ones, first seen in "Into the Portal", are described as:

The portal reminded Ami of pictures of Stonehenge. Four arches, composed of two tall stone pillars with a horizontal crossbar on top, were arranged in such a way that they touched at the corners. The area inside the square they formed glowed with hazy images of faraway territories and emitted a warm orange light

a structure that resembled a canopy tent, except that it was made of stone and rested on four thick, round pillars. Within the structure wavered a water-like surface, forming an upright oval that looked like a full-length mirror.

Possessing a Dead Body: Skeletons and other undead, other than vampires and death priests are powered by "bound, suffering spirits of the deceased" and under the control of Crowned Death, an evil god of death.

Powered Armor: Ami's personal armor in the duel against the Horned Reaper, as well as the weaker versions being made for the rest of her employees.

Power Tattoo: Zarekos is mentioned to have an inverted pentacle on his forehead.

Pummeling the Corpse: From Surprise Guest, after the Avatar found out that the Mukrezar he killed was just basically a body double, from the perspective of the goblin, Fiz:

An incoherent howl of absolute rage drew his attention back to the Avatar looming above him, sword raised high in the air. The goblin's ears drooped. The weapon came down on the corpse with a tearing sound, cutting deep into the wooden floor again and again as the Avatar vented his anger. [...] was throwing a tantrum bad enough to make him hack apart a fallen opponent

Rapid Aging: In An Awkward Talk, when it's discussed how a "necromantic withering spell" works:

The spell speeds up the organisms metabolism and supercharges its cells, causing them to divide at a vastly accelerated rate, but the influx of nutrients from the environment remains the same. Upon seeing the confused looks her explanation had earned her, she shifted mental gears and put it into words that Usagi would have understood, too. The spell makes the plant age rapidly, but it doesnt get enough food to fuel its growth, so it dies.

Rapid-Fire "But!": When a Dwarf Duke is in shock over Ami doing something that is impossible for normal Keepers, he goes, "But, but, but, Keeper!"

Rapid Hair Growth: A Torian-altered 'Beastly Beard Booster' spell, intended for use on hair, and given too much energy, causes this.

Reasonable Authority Figure: Abbot Duval, after being assigned to serve as a liason to Mercury, is at least willing to work with Ami and consider the possibility she's on the right side after all. Having a direct line to the Light Gods helps, as does being a Living Lie Detector through the "Judge's Eye gift".

Red Eyes, Take Warning: All keepers; their eyes get brighter when feeling strong emotion, particularly anger, or when channeling vast amounts of mana.

Reduced to Dust: Vampires turn to ashes when they truly die, or at least, when killed with lightning.

"Hey! Come back here!" Sailor Moon whined, panting as she looked at the back of the fleeing monster who had remembered that she could fly after being chased for several blocks, and was now taking a shortcut over a building.

At the outset of the War on Crowned Death. Once, when assaulted by a priest of Crowned Death, Mercury is confronted by the priest's apparent invulnerability. She proceeds to throw everything and the kitchen sink at him. Unfortunately, this includes the Mantle of the Avatar, a powerful artifact she recovered in the previous story arc. This artifact was itself the object Crowned Death was looking for- and his priest escapes with it in his custody. Turns out the priest was not using a powerful intangibility spell, just a simple illusion that Ami could have seen through easily if she had thought to analyze it using her visor.

Retail Therapy: In Out-of-Dungeon Experiences, it's suggested as a way for Ami to relieve her stress:

It would do you a world of good to just relax for a bit and have some fun shopping, like a normal girl your age. All that worrying cant be good for you.

Reverse Psychology: In A Promotion, a character, (it's Mukrezar) gets a warning to avoid Mercury, and his companion ((it's his butler)) wonders if its reverse psychology or not:

"That blasphemer is far beyond your ability to handle. You are, in fact, expressly forbidden from interfering with her. Now go and fulfil your orders!" The crystal ball went inert. "Reverse psychology, or simply an honest assessment?"

Ring of Power: Mukrezar apparently created a number of schemes involving these during his takeover of the Avatar Isles. They are notable in the fact that almost none of them actually worked.

The world's adamantine deposits are the can sealing away the evil of a deceased Dark God. The dwarfs try to use a similar idea to get rid of particularly dangerous Keepers by tricking them into a warded airtight adamantine chamber and locking them in.

Horned Reapers are also buried away by Reapers, because a Keeper getting rid of them in any other way is bound for retribution from the Dark Gods.

Ami's private lab was so secret that it didn't even have an entrance and could only be reached by teleportation.

Seeing Through Another's Eyes: A Dungeon Keeper can do it with any of their minions. Ami discovers that she can at least do it to imps, in Intra-Party Conflict, having an imp looking at a lock:

She could almost see the lock before her, badly damaged, hanging between her hands and against the tree bark. She needed a moment to realise that she did see it, from the perspective of the imp.

Serenade Your Lover: One of the things General Jadeite learned from reading romance novels, and a discarded plan to get Mercury to fall more in love with him, as said in Beryl's Plan:

Somehow, he didn't think she would be impressed if he serenaded her from below a balcony.

Serial Escalation: Mercury's inventive Magitek approach to the setting leads to ever more awesome ways she manages to defeat her enemies. She's just reluctant to use some of the more spectacular methods, in part because she doesn't want to give any of her enemies ideas. However, her sister Tiger has none of these inhibitions and gleefully fills Crowned Death's underwater temple fortress with a huge amount of Chlorine Trifluoride using the temple's own dungeon heart. For the uninitiated, that chemical is so reactive that it will vaporize rocks, make water explode (releasing a cloud of acids), burn asbestos and ignite glass and sand on contact. Oh, its byproducts are carcinogenic, too...

Right now, her brain was working with several experiences of having a good time doing that with other girls

Sexy Backless Outfit: In Unexpected Visitors, where Landra is first described, she's wearing "a back-free dress that went to mid thigh", which, like all of the clothing in Ami's dungeon at that point, is inclined to be sexually suggestive, due to influences from her dungeon, more specifically. her anti-hostile corruption measures forcing everything in her dungeon to have a theme of fertility.

Shadow Walker: Implied in "What a Mess". Morrigan's assassin, Juzint, seems to teleport through shadows as she prepared to assassinate a fairy:

Razor-sharp blades sprang from the woman's fingertips as she searched the sunlit roof for the nearest shadow. The chimney was casting a line of darkness onto the straw, which would suit her needs just fine.

Like a column of tar, Juzint's black-masked face and shoulders rose from the shadow that the red-bricked chimney was casting onto the inn's thatched roof. Unaware, her target stood with her back to the scarred assassin, channelling magical power into a diagram painted onto the straw.

Shoot the Dog: The Light Gods are sympathetic to Ami's plight. Really, they are. Nevertheless, they are trying to capture and imprison her - since they believe that as things stand, her intended course of action threatens billions of people and would allow the Dark Gods to spread to another world.

The saddest thing? It seems that the Dark Gods are already halfway there. Metallia is already semi-aware and the Vermin Lord has some of its minions attacking the Dark Kingdom.

One of the energy harvesting plans of Nephrite involved a girl and her passion for and lack of skill in cooking. To thank him and have him partake in her skills her family strong-armed Nephrite into getting a taste of the daughter's oh so delectable food. Later he's having trouble not regurgitating it in Beryl's throne room. The way it is written makes it obvious the girl in question being Akane.

The author has stated that the Avatar's powers were based off of the capabilities of a low-Essence Solar.

Nero, Keeper Arachne's torturer, makes a reference to the Evil Overlord List when he sneaks by several people in the form of a snake: "Whoever had written that turning into a snake never helped was an idiot of the highest caliber."

"You insolent- look! That, right there, is all of Keeper Mercury's strength that counts! Her best troops! We are too far from her dungeon for her to transport them back, so when the portal collapses, they'll be trapped here with us with no way to escape!"

"I think you mean 'and then we'll be trapped here with them'," the crone contradicted.

A Dark Elf is mentioned once to be wearing 'a red-feathered cloak and a silly hat', this might be a reference to Final Fantasy'''s Red Mage.

Ami's special youma-empowered imps are described as quite similar to Doozers in appearance.

Cathy and Jered might be a subtle reference to Final Fantasy VI. Cathy is an Action Girl who uses swords, and is the conscience of the group prior to joining Mercury (she is the last to sign up and is the most reluctant in doing so). Jered is a Loveable Rogue, and a Kleptomaniac Hero, he encourages Cathy to join. They are, for most of the first two arcs, the only Official Couple (as well as a Battle Couple). They are both blond(e). These are all traits of Celes Chere and Locke Cole.

Shrouded in Myth: The Dark Empress List mentioned in the Memetic Badass entry also counts as this in-universe, as it's pretty much what almost everyone holds as common knowledge about her - including both light and dark major nations' intelligence services, the Dark Gods, other Keepers, and her own followers outside her inner circle. You can read it at the "Awesome" tab.

magical trinkets and consumables- that reminds me..." [...] a ceramic disc with three embossed runes. "Here, that's for you. I acquired an extra." Cathy looked at the ceramic amulet resting on her open palm and traced the golden lines with one finger. "Magical? What does it do?" "One-use shield charm. Crack it to release the spell. It's meant as an emergency defence.

In Strategy Meeting, where "Nobody had gotten any sleep since that night on the road, and that had been more than twenty-four hours ago.", and they had spent the time they would've slept, preparing for a attack in under a week, with their very small force at the time.

As recounted in "Exhaustion", Ami stayed awake for four days straight in an ice golem body, so she could maintain enough attention to handle "unforeseen complications" from a rescue mission.

Crystal Hearts can only build rooms one tile at a time and use gold for all their spells, while Organic Hearts can fill large spaces all at once and uses mana for spells.

Imps spawned from Crystal Hearts are heavier and denser than mana-spawned imps from Organic Hearts. But they arrive dead without the blessing of the Dark Gods.

The First Horned Reaper is a more modern depiction of the horned reapers as a whole, while Rabixtrel who has been trapped in the Avatar Islands from the first game is depicted as a leaner, smaller and bloodthirstier horned reaper.

Marbles? CAREFUL!" A moment after the warning, arms flailed and armour rattled as the tiny orbs got underfoot, causing soldiers to trip and fall, who in turn tripped up more of the pursuers. From one instant to another, the group of hunters was a mess of angry bodies sprawled over each other.

Spectral Weapon Copy: As said in Divine Opposition, Part 1, if needed, the Mantle-empowered Avatar can create "phantom blades".

Spell Book: Detailed in "Recovering", the Reaper Armor spell was given to Ami in a book with brass bindings, which tells her how to cast the spell, along with how to fight with the scythe the spell provides.

it says, 'DANGER, READ THIS FIRST' in huge red letters," the priestess quoted. "'Contents: 31 ravenous vampires'." Amadeus choked on his drink and spewed the reddish liquid from his nostrils. Once he had regained control over his breathing, he asked incredulously "Say what?"

Spiteful Suicide: In "Assault on Wemos", Wemos's final death, is used to spite Zarekos, who turned him into a vampire, by depriving him of the resource of his body, through being willingly teleported by an enemy to parts unknown.

four ornately-robed figures appeared amidst them, battle staves of Calarine meeting at a point above their heads. The sizzling, violet dome surrounding the attackers shoved aside the quicker-reacting reaperbots. As her magical counter-attack crept over the dark priests' shield in blinding arcs, one of them tapped the floor with the back of his staff. All four of them disappeared, along with a bowl-shaped section of the floor they had been standing on. "Darn it! Where did they go?" Ami wondered. This kind of hit-and-run tactics wasn't something the automatons could deal with.

Still Got It: After Amadeus returns after being gone for years, and not having fought for a while in that body, he fights against a tough opponent, Horned Reaper Rabixtrel, and wins handily:

Yes, I still got it, Amadeus nodded in satisfaction as he twirled his blood-tipped sword around, none the worse for wear from the short altercation.

Stock Medieval Meal: In Meet the Locals, the narration describes Ami's first meal at an inn like this: "The waitress appeared and set a plate down in front of the famished girl. It contained steaming potatoes and some kind of sausage she didn't recognize. The meal also came with a large mug of foamy beer". A later meal, at another inn, has "milk, honey, bread, and slices of bacon".

Summoning Ritual: A long one, to summon a stationary object is used multiple times.

Ami had both of her hands raised high over her head as she struggled to pronounce the unfamiliar syllables of the spell. A clean circle of ground had expanded in front of her, pushing a ring-shaped wave of clogging blood outward as it grew in diameter. The magical circle's perimeter burst into icy flame, and thirteen evenly-spaced flickering runes appeared in the burning curtain. [...] Ami's voice reached a crescendo as she refused to let herself be distracted by the plight of her comrades. In response, lines of fire pulsed and drew a pentagram in the centre of the summoning circle. Suddenly, the entire room coloured with the bright orange tones of an active furnace when a tornado of flame exploded from the ground, sending large chunks of the summoning circle flying.

Super Hero: The Avatar is this to the surface nations. That The Underworld regards him in a different light is putting it mildly.

Supervillain Lair: Keepers love turning their Dungeons into this, and the corruption effect certainly helps. Mercury does battle with a Keeper who turned their mountain fortress into a giant leering skull once.

Superweapon Surprise: Ami has the power to move items around within her territory. Her body counts as part of her territory. In short, she can move her arms fast enough to punch through a Horned Reaper.

Just as a guardsman on top of the tower was keeping a watchful eye on the surrounding fields and pastures with a telescope, a second guard attentively observed the sensitive instruments that measured vibrations in the ground. In theory.

In practice, Theo considered watching the calm basins, swinging pendulums, and trembling indicators one of the most boring jobs in the world. He wasnt going to take a nap while he was on duty, but he also wasnt going to stare at the hands moving across never-changing charts all the time. That would lead to him falling asleep for sure.

Instead, he reclined on his chair and flipped the pages of a worn booklet, glancing from time to time at the instruments. ... Now whats this noise?

He listened intently for the feint ringing that sounded just as if he had struck his helmet with a teaspoon. It repeated, and his eyes darted toward the cylindrical chimes hanging from the wall, connected to one of the vibration-measuring devices clicking away before him. Alarmed, he stood up, put the book aside, and wiped the dust and spider webs off a huge board that covered the right wall. Nervously, he searched the comparison chart for patterns matching the graphs the mechanical instruments were drawing. Once he found them, he paled. ... The proper authorities needed to be informed immediately! His keys jingled as he approached the dusty cabinet that held a crystal ball for just that purpose. He missed the keyhole twice in his haste, and hoped the orb would still be in good shape. As far as he knew, there hadnt been a need to use it in the last two decades.

Taken for Granite: Monteraine specializes in petrification, she's so good that she's stated to have taken out two Vampires this way — and Vampires have been shown to trump Reaperbots...

Taking You with Me: Ami to Morrigan. Since she plans to blow up her dungeon hearts anyway, she first uses the Armageddon Spell to bring Morrigan's army into the blast radius.

"Of course not. However," Cathy looked Mercury straight in the eyes, "who knows how things will develop in the future? I don't really know your background or what they teach to girls in your world, so I have to ask, for your own safety: do you know where babies come from?" Poor Mercury, who had just raised the bottle back to her lips, splashed herself in the face and promptly had another coughing fit. With a face as red as a tomato, she stuttered "Y-yes, but I can't believe you- I wouldn't-" Suddenly, her eyes narrowed. "Wait, this is revenge for me surprising you, isn't it?"

"...flogging is used even in some surface armies," Cathy's energetic voice sounded behind her. The tall blonde was gesticulating with her hands, apparently trying to convince her boyfriend of something.

Torian, use scrying to triangulate his exact position and tell me, she ordered. I need the best possible precision. Just a moment. Hmm. Yes. Imagine a straight line between the wide end of the emerald-studded sarcophagus and the right foot of the statue on the wall. Imagine a second line between you and the garish double-headed axe on the wall. Hes standing right on their intersection.Are you absolutely sure? she verified. To about a hands span close, yes,

That was good enough for her. Aiming for the average dwarfs height, she brought a Shabon Spray Freezing from her storage and launched it at the indicated location.

you made sure that everyone in a command position learned the spell for communicating telepathically," Jered pointed out

Teleportation Sickness: In A Promotion, it is said that "vampire teleportation ... rather disagrees with a living body.", as previously seen as "dry heaves" in Mukrezar's Return, which presumably would have been vomiting, if the user did not have an empty stomach.

Teens Are Short: From the first chapter, the Reaper judges that Ami is a teenager because of her short-ness:

An imp dropped down out of thin air, startling the red demon who was leaning bored against the wall. Immediately, the bug-eyed creature started hacking away at the unfinished rock in a frenzy, sending up a cloud of dust that billowed into the narrow corridor. After tunnelling through barely half a metre of rock, it broke through into the chamber behind, sending a spray of crumbling debris and stone spilling on the expensive carpet below. The occupant of the room was sitting in a high-backed armchair with red cushions, and was staring at the intruder with wide eyes. [...] "You could have used the door," the warlock stated with a nod toward one corner of the room, where the polished wood of an entrance gleamed in the fireplace's light. From the outside, it looked no different than any other piece of the wall. "From this," he pointed at the fuku-clad imp, "I brilliantly conclude that you are here to secure my not inconsiderable abilities for a Keeper with rather strange taste in uniforms."

Metal crumpled and bent under her fingers, and with a short yank, she almost ripped the door off its hinges. Purplish smoke escaped from the opening. It wasnt locked, you know, the figure on the throne commented drily, far less impressed than his court wizard.

Things That Go "Bump" in the Night: Parents tell their children that Mercury (and presumably other keepers) will come and eat them if they are naughty. One of the sacrifices is confused when Mercury seems offended by the thought.

Third Eye: As said in Assault on Wemos, the idol on the Avatar Islands has one, sorta of. And it's magical and meant to help ascend someone to godhood:

At its very top, the former ruler of the continent floated in the centre of the huge pentagram decorating the idol's bald forehead almost like a glowing third eye.

The pinkish-white arcs of lightning from the hurried shot fanned out, raking the left arm of the blurring shadow, just before she could reach her target [...] A spasm went through Juzint's leg, just at the wrong instant. The flow of time seemed to return to normal, but instead of intestines spilling out of the blue-haired girl's stomach, only blood surged from the four crimson lines drawn across her belly.

This Is Unforgivable!: What amounts to this happens during the invasion of Dreadfog Island, when Empress Mercury learns that the undead priests of the Crowned Death have plucked out the eyes of 8,000 captive innocents they intend to sacrifice — including children — so that they couldn't cause trouble. Ami is not pleased.

Tickle Torture: Sailor Moon does this with a Youma to see if she knows anything about Ami's location after her vanishing. Sailor Mars is embarrassed by the ordeal.

Time Abyss: The Light Gods, and Dark Gods as categories have existed since "a time so long ago that even the continents of this planet did not yet have their present shape".

Time Bomb: Referenced in "Beryl's Plan" when Ami, a.k.a Keeper Mercury, uses Jadeite's lap as one, after she gets drunk, and he's nervous due to her heavy scrutiny of him due to their unclear relationship status:

Jadeite couldn't have been more nervous if someone had dumped a ticking time bomb onto his lap. The comparison was uncharitable to the red-faced girl who was using his legs as a pillow, but he found it fitting.

Mukrezar thrust a fist in the air. "Today, your cult. Soon, the Avatar!"

Toilet Horror: Arachne's spiders attacked people through the sewers and their toilets when she attacked Albrecht's kingdom.

Tongue Trauma: From Time Flies, Ami, noticed that "Jadeite, who was sitting across the table from her, had winced while chewing, she put down her own sandwich in concern. "Do the burns still give you trouble?". After a segment musing on how caring his new boss is, compared to his old Bad Boss, he responds:

"If you must know, I bit my tongue."

Too Dumb to Live: The Dumb Blonde vampire, who is called "suicidally stupid" two scenes later in the same chapter. Ironically, this vampire survives both the fighting in said chapter, and Ami's later purge of the vampires. She is seen asking questions regarding the targets of Ami's persuasion campaign. "Your Majesty, can you offer us advice on the best approach here? Should we be intimidating? Select targets of the opposite gender?"

Averted in the case of Ami's psychological torture. She largely bluffs them, and the mistress creates the impression that she did unspeakable things to them.

Trail of Blood: From Interrupted Plotting, it's how Rabixtrel is first found, as a trail of blood from his victims, leads scryers to him:

Lets see if whoever is running that place has managed to attract something other than skeletons and ghosts by now. I got something, one of the magicians called, stroking his beard. Ami hurried over, followed by the others. That quickly? I just followed the trail of blood, the gangly wizard answered, gesturing at the screen with a gnarled hand. He soon felt crowded when everyone leaned in around him to get a better view of the cavernous hall he had found.

"Mercury Power, Make Up!" A flash of blue light concealed Ami for a split second when she triggered her transformation to restore her ruined outfit. It also re-applied her make-up, removing all traces of crying, and cleaned her body, as it was intended to.

She assumed that Crowned Death found it more economical to use his undead forces for construction than to make the dungeon heart spend gold. In particular if the latter could be used to fuel his arrival in this world instead.

Clearly, someone had rescued them, but who, and for what reason? Suddenly worried, she looked down at herself, and was relieved that her familiar costume was still in place, even if was slashed in places and stained with coagulated blood.

"As you all know, our Great Lord, Azzathra the Mighty Tyrant, traditionally rewards the winner by bestowing upon him some aspect of the loser's strength." ... "However, Lord Azzathra, in his infinite wisdom, has decided that such a gift would clearly be wasted ... she will receive some of the horned reaper's knowledge instead."

Villain Ball Magnet: Being the only instance of Dark Is Not Evil among Keepers, Ami cannot convince the forces of good that she means well. With the exception of the Cathy-Jered-Snyder trio, and the mind-reading Light Gods. To the latter's credit, they have requested that the forces of good try to capture Ami alive.

Villainous Crush: This is how the fairies think Keeper Mercury feels about Jadeite.

Villain Teleportation: Well, the Lightsiders have hero portals, but the underworlders have more teleportation methods:

Teleportation through shadows: From Nero's Spell (Part 2): Seen by Alphel's scarred dark mistress: who "rose like a blob of black tar from the pooling shadows".

It's how Ami is introduced to the Dungeon Keeper world in the first place, as said in the third paragraph of the first chapter:

Ami Mizuno, currently Sailor Mercury, let out a soft groan as she woke. She was lying on her stomach, and, judging from the way her ribs, side, and face ached, had landed that way, possibly head-first. Feeling cold, rough stone under her left cheek, she raised her head off the ground. There was a stinging sensation and a slight resistance as coagulating blood stuck to the floor. Deep blue eyes opened and stared unseeing into the darkness. Ami could hear dripping noises echoing in the distance, and the cold air smelled of mould and a hint of sulphur. Where was she, and how did she get here?

Maggie opened her eyes, feeling drowsy. Confused by the softness of her mattress, she blinked as bright light blinded her. This isn't my bed, she realised with a start, and her heartbeat quickened.

"Wanted!" Poster: It's implied that it's what the warrant for Snyder's arrest is, from "Vampire Weaknesses", as it is used by Bounty Hunters and had a "sketch that bore a great resemblance to the redhead".

We Have Reserves: Most Keepers — three guesses who the main exception is. This is still played straight by Ami in the earlier part of the story with golems. In fact she vastly overestimated how many reserves she had in her first major battle using them.

We Need a Distraction: Ami uses Tserk to break into a Temple of The Light, filled with Priests, Guards, and the Fairy Sisters to rescue Jadeite using nothing more than a Wand that makes things go invisible, a flask of acid, a flask of base, some flour, some marbles, and two pills that transform whoever swallows them into mice. Tserk succeeds.

We Will Meet Again: Tserk swears he will have his revenge against Keeper Midori. Why? Tserk had finally convinced Cathy and Mercury to let him give them a massage, and Keeper Midori's scrying ended it.

What Could Have Been: A Pusakuronu's omake tells the story of how instead of summoning Mukrezar, Crowned Death would've summoned Sailor Saturn to aid him instead.

What Is This Thing You Call "Love"?: Dark General Jadeite seems to be heading this way. At first, he's confused by Ami's, who's his boss, feelings for him. Later, by his own empathy.

What the Hell, Hero?: Dr. Mizuno to Ami in "Family Matters," though a milder example than most. Later Ami finally has a minor breakdown, blowing up in Camilla's face when she continues to say that Mercury is evil even after rescuing the civilians from Dreadfog and evacuating the Avatar Islands.

Only an elderly witch, her wrinkly face distorted in rage, swung her staff at the fast-moving blur that was Amis form. [...] Undeterred, the old woman proceeded to whack her on the head with her staff over and over again, cursing her with language so coarse her cheeks grew hot.

Where Does He Get All Those Wonderful Toys?: All of the villains, and most of the heroes wonder on a regular basis where Empress Mercury gets all of her awesome equipment and magic from. Where dose she come up with these remote battle drones? The Airships, the Dominate Undead Spell? Attempts to steal/emulate it is the subject of several subplots.

Winged Humanoid: Fairies, Angels, and Dark Angels all have wings of one kind or another. As said in A New Arrival, Angels have "white, feathery wings".

Wishing Well: From Corruption?: When Ami muses on sacrificing gold in her temple, her Reaper says: "The temple is no wishing well, you dolt!"

Wolf Whistle: From Beryl's Plan: Some people in the audience of a striptease make some:

the crazy dark elf undulating to goblin music and slowly doffing her clothes, accompanied by wolf whistles

Won't Take "Yes" for an Answer: When Empress Mercury is reviewing and accepts the plans for the embassy for the Shining Concord Empire, a terrified Camilla is so certain of her doom she invokes this trope.

The Worf Effect: Ami's "fearsome" Reaperbots often serve only to illustrate how much more fearsome her current opponent is. They are still more than a match for most of the stuff she is expected to encounter from your average Keeper, but once things like vampires, dark angels, or real reapers show up they're cut down like wheat.

X-Ray Vision: The stated reason most of the Underworld wears leather clothing. Whether or not this is actually the case, or just an easy excuse to sell such clothing is left up to the readers to decide.

Ami was nice enough to confirm it for us, For Science! only of course...

At least, the Light Gods don't want Ami to so long as she's a Keeper, since the Dark Gods will be able to follow her there.

Also a problem for Jered, Cathy, Snyder and Camilla, as their accidental association with a Keeper make them untrustworthy in the eyes of most of the rest of the world.

Zeppelins from Another World: Inverted, incredibly, when Ami has her Senshi friends transmit info about zepplins so that she can build them in the Dungeon Keeper world—a world in which airships are completely unknown—to transport an army across the world rapidly.

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